The Silmarillion

Tolkien's book on the history of the Elves was his longest lasting project, being started before The Lord of the Rings was ever written and not being published until after his death, and also his most obtuse, although there's quite a lot of interesting stuff there if you can get into it. It reads more like a bible or history than a normal story, beginning with the creation myth and being broken into several sections that cover various aspects like Sauron's rise to prominence. The largest section by far is the Quenta Silmarillion itself, broken further into chapters that cover many different parts of the long, storied history of the Elves, focusing on the conflict over the Silmarils, special jewels one of them forged near the beginning; and Melkor, one of the originally created beings who became the first great evil known as Morgoth.

To be honest, I had some trouble reading this book. Tolkien's work has always been a bit dense and difficult, and the text here is as dry as anything. It's nearly impossible to keep the names of all the many Elves and their families straight without the tons of supplementary information in the back of the book, and sometimes I just had to power through the wall of words, sacrificing full comprehension of what I was reading so I wouldn't be stuck staring at it for hours. I didn't get as much out of it as I really would have liked, but there was still some very interesting stuff in there and some really nice stand alone stories, like the tale of Beren and Luthien, the first marriage of an Elf and a Man. There's enough material here to keep the movie machine going after they finish filming The Hobbit if they wanted, especially considering the recent release of a full novel version of The Children of Húrin. Only fans of Tolkien should try reading this, and if you are one you likely already have, but it's an interesting part of fantasy pop culture.